Tag Archives: Coconut oil

On my quest to live a more natural holistic lifestyle I’ve had to look at the many products I put on my skin everyday. When you begin reading the labels on everyday use items, it is shocking how many toxins we’re exposing ourselves to. One of those items is deodorant. Most deodorants and anti-perspirants contain aluminum, parabens and propylene glycol. There are growing links between the chemicals found in such products and chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer. So what’s the solution? Make your own deodorant that doesn’t have the junk! Its super easy to do, and lucky for you, I’ve already done the legwork to create a recipe that REALLY works!

Today I want to share with you my tried and true homemade deodorant recipe. I tried many recipes, and with all of them I ended up smelling “crunchy” by the end of the day. My mother made sure to let me know when one of my deodorant creations was NOT working, and I unfortunately had many smelly days. I’m not one of those girls who smells like flowers naturally, and I’m guessing neither are you. I may be a borderline dirty hippy, but I’d rather not smell like a dirty hippy. I worked on a lot of different combinations, I tried other people’s recipes, looked at the ingredients on some of the natural store brands, and finally came up with my own perfect recipe that is seriously awesome! Like so awesome that it stood up to my husband playing 3 hours of tennis in Florida… in August… in over 90 degree weather! This stuff is the truth.

Now here’s my tiny caveat: Because I’m pregnant and my skin is all weird and super sensitive it caused some irritation for me, but I’ve had other people use it and no one else has had any issues. Even one of my friends who has very sensitive skin used it and had no problems. So I’m pretty sure my irritation is pregnancy related. I will say that it only bothered me when I had just shaved my underarms, but I’m even less interested in having hairy pits, than I am in having smelly ones. Do let me know if you have any issues with this recipe as I’m always eager to improve, but I have a good feeling that it will work great for you!

In a double boiler, melt the beeswax beads. If you’re allergic to beeswax I think you could easily leave this part out as I don’t think its essential to the deodorant working. Its mostly for texture and to keep the stuff on your pits. Its also REALLY helpful if you plan to use an empty deodorant container, because it will keep it solid in the tube and will apply more easily. If you’re using the jar, I think you could also skip the wax, but again, I think it helps keep the stuff on your underarms all day.

Once the beeswax is melted, add your coconut oil, and vanilla oil. You can really use any scent you like but I think the vanilla is soft and sweet and goes well with the coconut. Some people like to use tea tree oil in their recipes for its anti-fungal properties, but I found the scent to be much too strong. If you like it then by all means use it! I think it would only help. Other nice choices would be lavender oil, patchouli oil, eucalyptus oil, or ylang ylang.

Once your oils are blended add in the powdered sugar. The purpose of the powdered sugar is that when the sugar combines with your natural body sweat it creates a sort of osmotic substance that then becomes a natural antiperspirant! How about that! And it really works too. Dissolve the sugar using a small whisk.

Keep the mixture over the heat and begin stirring in the baking soda, and corn starch, sprinkling it in slowly. It will start to thicken up a LOT. Just make sure everything is well incorporated.

Now you can pour the mix into either the jar or the deodorant stick. Allow it to set up at room temperature for a couple hours. Don’t put it in the fridge or it might crack. It will be solid pretty quickly if your house is relatively cool. If you don’t have a jar you can also use an empty deodorant stick, or you can buy new ones from SKS. They have lots of different options to choose from and they’re dirt cheap! Not having one of those fantastic tubes on hand, I just poured my deodorant into a small mason jar. With the jar you just have to spread about half a fingertip amount of the deodorant on your underarms. Its a little firm so you will want to soften it between your fingers before applying. If you want it to be softer, you could always leave out the beeswax.

And that, my friends, is it! I really hope you enjoy making your own deodorant.

I was thrilled when a few friends from church asked if I wanted to help make some scrubs to raise money for folks in our church who are going on missions trips this summer. Not only do I get to help support a totally awesome cause, but I get to play with all my awesome ingredients! I am so in love with all the awesome products I bought for the Lip Balm project and I’ve been having lots of fun trying them out in different homemade products.

So together we researched scrub recipes, and came up with one of our own that turned out so wonderfully! Not only does it smell incredible, and feel so luxurious on our hands, but its so completely and totally adorable in this super cute jar from SKS-bottle. Have I told you lately how much I LOVE SKS-bottle? They seriously have every single type of container I could ever need for craft projects. And this jar was perfect for the look we were going for. We used the 8oz size, but I also have some 16oz jars too that I will use soon for some more scrub recipes I want to try. Since we’re going to be selling these, we really wanted them to look polished and professional and I really think they turned out awesome!

In a double boiler, melt the orange butter. (I just use two glass pyrex cups, and boiling hot water from the kettle, this also makes it easier to pour the oil directly from the cup). Once it is melted slowly stir in all the oils and the vegetable glycerin. Make sure to mix thoroughly so all the oils and the butter are properly emulsified. Pour the sugar into the bowl. Into the sugar, slowly stir in the oil mixture. Be sure to mix very well. You may need to get your hands in there to make sure there are no lumps or spots that aren’t completely combined (And you just happen to get the added benefit of super soft hands when you do it this way!). Let the scrub set for about 10-15 minutes to continue marrying. Give it one last stir then you are ready to go! Wasn’t that easy?

I made enough for 6 portions of 6 ounces of scrub. I used these 8 oz containers, because I didn’t want the scrub to be all the way up to the top.

I chose do do tags instead of sticker labels because I figured stickers would get ruined it gets wet in the shower. I printed the labels directly onto a sheet of brown kraft cardstock using a simple 1 1/2 label template and used a 1 1/2 inch circle punch to cut them out. I hole-punched each one, and tied them on using twine. Super easy, and adorably rustic.

Special Thanks to Jessi, Dink, and Alex for making this project awesome, and for a super fun day hanging out and being crafty!

I’ve been wanting to make my own lip balm for a really long time. I’ve spent lots of time looking at various recipes and researching all the ingredients before I finally took the plunge and decided to do the legwork to come up with the most wonderful, luscious lip balm recipe ever! Lucky for you, I write a blog and you get to reap the moisturizing lip benefits! The other awesome thing is that I have a super awesome new sponsor, SKS Bottle, (you remember them from my apothecary spice jar project) who sent me these awesome lip balm tubes! I couldn’t resist.

When it comes to lip balm, the sky is the limit when it comes to ingredient variations. There are so many wonderful natural ingredients that you can mix and match to come up with the best recipe for you. I recommend playing around and seeing what works for you. The following is just one of many lip balm recipes I will be posting in the coming weeks and months.

I give you Homemaker Chic’s “Citrus Splash SPF Lip Balm ”

Now, this may seem like a lot of ingredients, but there are so many different variations you can do with just a few small tweaks. I ordered all of the ingredients I needed in one day, online, from my living room. And most of it was free shipping. All in all, I spent about $100 for everything (That includes some other ingredients not included in this recipe, for different flavored lip balms). It may sound like a lot for lip balm but everything came in large enough quantities that I will have enough to make lip balm for my sisters, my mom, my friends and myself for a very VERY long time. PLUS- many of these ingredients are excellent for other skin preparations other than lip balm and are very handy to have around the house. It is an investment, and a project, but if you want to do this, you really need to have all the best ingredients. If it seems like too much for you, then by all means- Burt’s Bees is at your disposal! I will tell you though, that this is the most luxurious, smooth, and moisturizing lip balm I’ve ever tried. It smells and tastes amazing and you will LOVE it! I won’t ever go back to store bought again.

Supplies:

12 lip balm tubes

1 lip balm filling tray

Plastic putty knife

Lucky for you SKS Bottle has an awesome deal for Homemaker Chic readers! You can get the exact lip balms tubes, filling tray and putty knife that I used, and actually a few other tube designs for a big discount! They’re giving my readers $10 off an order of $50. They also have lots of other containers that I’m going to be using in some upcoming posts so you can spend $50 real quick. Just use the code HomeChic413 at checkout (or click the image below). I love their site!!

You can really play around with the oils. You could use one type of oil, or make a blend like I did.

Let me explain a little bit about why I chose the blend that I did.

Orange butter comes specifically from Florida Oranges (of which I am a HUGE supporter since I’m from Florida!). It has wonderful moisturizing qualities, smells incredible, and gives this balm part of its wonderful citrus flavor and scent. Mango butter is light and fresh smelling and very smooth. It has great healing properties for dried, cracked lips, and peeling skin. It also has SPF natural SPF properties. Coconut Oil has amazing moisture benefits, and is well known for bringing chapped lips back to life. It has a wonderful scent that really pairs well with the tropical flavor profile in this balm.

The raspberry seed oil was added for its natural SPF benefit. It has very little scent. Several studies have show it to be anywhere from 6-20 on the SPF scale. Living in a sunny climate I really need SPF in my lip balm so this was a must. Same goes for the avocado oil, which aside from its incredible moisture and healing benefits, is also a natural SPF of 6. The vitamin E oil is excellent for healing chapped lips and protecting them, but a little goes a long way.

I added the castor oil because it adds a really nice shine to the balm, and helps maintain soft and supple lips. The olive oil was added because I needed a little bit more filler and olive oil is slightly cheaper than castor and avocado oils, but it still has tons of moisture and lip protecting benefits.

The Mica Shimmer powder is a mineral powder that is used in eye shadows and other make up to make them shimmer. The version I’m using is natural and perfectly safe to use on the lips. Make sure the Mica you get is lip safe, as some are and some aren’t.

Start by snapping your tubes into the tray. I really love this lip balm filling tray from SKS-bottle because it makes filling the little tubes SO easy. I seriously can’t imagine how I would have done this without the tray. I’m sure I would have been knocking them over and spilling hot lip balm everywhere. I’m sure you could DIY this by cutting holes in a cereal box, or by sticking the tubes into styrofoam to keep them still, but the thing I like about this tray is that the tubes fit perfectly and snap in firmly, so they don’t fall over. Plus once the balm cools you can smooth the tops with a putty knife and you get a really professional flat top to the balm. Its really worth it if you plan to make a lot of balms.Prepare your double boiler. I just used a small saucepan with a pyrex measuring cup. I filled the pot with water and placed metal cookie cutter in the bottom, then just set the cup on top. The cookie cutter kept the glass from directly touching the heat. You could also use a couple rings from a mason jar. Get the water simmering and pour in 1 ounce of beeswax. Use a metal spoon or knife to gently stir the wax. I like using a flexible metal spatula because it really makes it easy to scrape down the sides of the cup later on.

Once the wax is melted, add your butters. I only had one little ounce measuring cup so instead of washing it out and losing all that wonderful butter in between, I just scooped out the little bit that was in the cup and rubbed it on my skin. Its wonderfully moisturizing, and expensive too, so don’t waste!

Once the butters are melted add your oils and the sweetener.

A WORD ABOUT SWEETENER: So a lot of people use stevia to sweeten their balms. I personally don’t like the taste so I tried Nutresse, which is a sugar from the monk fruit. You could probably just use regular sugar, but there might be something to be said for the fine powder of stevia. Here’s the thing with sweetening lip balm. SUGAR WILL NOT COMPLETELY DISSOLVE IN OIL. BUT, it will partially dissolve, and you just need a little. I stirred and stirred, and the oil was really hot, but on a molecular level, oil just doesn’t have the ability to completely break down the sugars (even in liquid form like honey or liquid stevia. Liquid sweetener will separate in your finished balm.). So you will probably end up with sugar crystals in the bottom of your cup. This is okay. As you pour the finished lip balm into the tubes, the sugar will stay at the bottom. You won’t end up with undissolved sugar crystals in your balm if you pour carefully. So just dissolve it as much as you can and don’t worry about it.

Now you can add your coloring if you want. I added sugar blush mica powder which added a hint of color and shimmer. A little Mica goes a LONG way, so use it sparingly. You can always add more, but you can’t take away. I also added a sliver of Revlon colored lip balm in a nice coral color. This really doesn’t add much color to your lips but it makes the balm a little more presentable and pretty in my opinion. Just slice a bit of lipstick off, and melt it into the balm. You could totally leave this part out. I know there are some other natural ways to tint lip balm out there, I just haven’t tried them yet.

Use the back of your spoon or spatula to collect a test sample. Allow it to cool. (I stuck the spatula in the freezer for a few seconds to speed up the process.) Use your finger to rub a bit on your lips to see how it feels and tastes. If its too hard, too soft, or not sweet enough you can still alter the recipe. You may find that you want a stronger grapefruit flavor, so just add a few more drops of the essential oil (although be careful not to add too much because essential oils tends to be pretty intense and can dry out lips if you add too much. just add a few drops at a time to be safe. I wouldn’t add more than 30 drops to this recipe.) If its too hard, add more coconut oil. If its too soft, add more beeswax. I have tested this recipe and found it to be the perfect consistency and flavor, but you can always change it if you’re looking for something different.

NOW- the pouring part is a bit tricky.

Pour quickly and carefully into each tube, filling all the way to the top. Its okay if it slightly overflows onto the tray.

The balm will cool and harden very quickly, so quickly in fact, that as you’re pouring, you will notice it hardening in the glass. You will have to pour as much as you can, as quickly as you can.

Once it cools too much to pour, scrape the cup and return it to the water bath to remelt it. I had to do this twice while filling 12 tubes. After you fill the tubes, the balm will settle and you will have little pits in each tube. Refill each tube to the top again. Allow them to cool for a good 5 minutes.

Finally, scrape the putty knife firmly across the top and smooth out the surface of your balms.

Once you have smoothed the tops, let them sit for an hour or two to completely firm up before using.

If you follow the recipe correctly, you’ll have a bit leftover. I remelted it and added an equal part of coconut oil to the lip balm mix, then I poured it into a little pot I had. It turns out to be a wonderful skin balm or belly butter for stretch marks! I absolutely love rubbing it on my hands. Just one example of how all these ingredients can create another awesome skin product. And its all natural!

I’ll be working on some cute custom labels in the coming days so I’ll hopefully be sharing a printable with you soon.

I hope this helps! This project was so much fun and the results are wonderful. I know you’ll love this recipe. Happy Lip Balm making!